Roads to Safety was conceived in response to concerns raised by participants in our Older Women’s Dialogue Project: older women face high rates of violence and particular barriers to safety, and there is a shortage of accessible legal information about their rights and options. Recognizing that older women face overlapping legal challenges and need access to a wide range of legal information all in one place, we created a handbook that touches on everything from capacity and decision-making rights, to immigration, to pensions, to protection orders, to property division after separation, and much more.

As a companion piece to Roads to Safety, we have also produced multilingual wallet cards listing sources of support and information for older women.

We are grateful to the many older women, frontline service providers, and lawyers who shaped this project. Thanks also to the BC Council to Reduce Elder Abuse for funding our work to provide older women with the targeted legal information they need in order to seek safety.

Thanks to the generous support of the BC Association of Community Response Networks, all resources associated with this project were reprinted in March 2017. As of June 2017, there were limited copies of the handbook still available as well as wallet cards in languages other than English. Unfortunately, the version of the wallet card for Indigenous older women as well as the general English version are out of stock. If you represent an organization that supports older women, you can inquire about ordering print copies of Roads to Safety or our multilingual wallet cards by emailing Alana Prochuk at education {at} westcoastleaf {dot} org or by calling 604-684-8772 extension 117.

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West Coast Leaf

West Coast LEAF is the only organization in BC that uses the law to further gender equality. We work to end gender-based discrimination using equality rights litigation, law reform, and public legal education.